


there'll be no life of crime

by Byacolate



Series: what's your rush [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Bad Flirting, Body Modification, But just a little, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pen Pals, Protectiveness, Sharing Clothes, Spooning, UST, aggressive verbal foreplay, booty appreciation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 06:37:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As much as he respects Stacker Pentecost, Hermann hates him a little for dangling Hannibal Chau in front of Newton’s eyes like a toy mouse on a string.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there'll be no life of crime

Some nights they get plenty of sleep, and sometimes they run on only a few hours a night for days at a time. It’s never conducive to their work or their ethic when they can’t function properly, so Hermann has never had a problem with any of their colleagues curling up to catch a few winks on the sofa tucked against the far wall of the laboratory. He’s never done it himself, but he makes no move to wake them and casts no disapproving stares their way when they wake. It’s enough for everyone in the lab to gawk at him for the first few weeks it's there.

 

Hermann is a bit affronted by that, if he’s honest. He’s not a  _monster_.

 

Years pass like this, and no matter where Hermann and Newton go, the couch tends to follow. Their numbers dwindle as people are transferred, and then they dwindle ever more when funding for the Jaeger program is whittled away bit by bit, until it is just he and Newton and the long leather sofa. Hermann doesn’t use it for sleep, but he does not begrudge Newton a nap or two. He knows Newt’s hours as intimately as his own, and knows them to be just as cruel.

 

But Hermann loathes how disastrously  _attractive_ Newton can be when he’s sprawled haphazardly over the sofa, face half hidden where it’s tucked into the crook of his elbow. An abrupt snore breaks the silence of the room, and Hermann hates himself a little for finding it so endearing.

 

Once upon a time, somewhere in the vicinity of four years after their first meeting, Hermann managed to convince Newton of the importance of professional image in some way or another because that was about the time he started to notice Newton tucking his shirt into his pants. It felt like a battle won every time he saw the neat crease, the way his crisp white shirts disappeared so nicely into the waistline of Newton’s trousers. Now though, deep in slumber, his shirt has ridden up in a stretch, taut over Newt’s waist.

 

He’s twisted in a shape that Hermann isn’t sure could possibly be comfortable; his right hip nearly touches the back of the couch, but his torso curves down until his chest is practically flat on the cushions. He’s using his left arm for a pillow, and his right flops over the edge of the couch so that his fingertips nearly brush the floor.

 

The skin on show between his crisp white dress shirt and ungodly tight jeans is pale, which comes as no surprise, except for a tendril of color that is most certainly just another of his collection of monsters. There is a distinct line, a shadow where his hip bone juts out and the cut of muscle beneath leads to the waistband of his jeans and Hermann is suddenly hot under the collar because there is a faint smattering of dark hair just below his belly button that does  _not_ need to be analyzed.

 

It doesn’t. And even if it did, Newt is the biologist, not Hermann. There is no fathomable excuse for the on site mathematician to examine his lab partner so closely. None at all.

 

Hermann tucks his bottom lip briefly between his teeth and inches closer before he lifts his cane, prodding it into the slight paunch of Newton’s belly. He mewls - a noise that makes Hermann freeze like a gunshot - and then groans. “Hey asshole, what’s your deal?”

 

“Tuck in your shirt at once,” he hisses back, swiftly turning on his heel and limping over to his chalkboard. “We have a sense of propriety to uphold, as you _very_ _well_ know.”

 

“We have a sense of propriety to uphold,” he hears Newton mocking behind him. It makes him bristle but he does not turn.

 

* * *

 

Four years before they meet in the flesh, just as the world makes its first hasty attempts at fending off the sudden appearance of extraordinary monsters like something straight out of Cloverfield, Newton and Hermann are something like penpals.

 

Newton initiates the contact with a letter to one Dr. Gottlieb, chief engineer of the Jaeger program, and Lars finds it so ridiculous that he passes it on to his eldest son to respond. “You can answer all of these questions for me,” he’d snorted. “I do not have the time to humor a curious child’s thousand questions.”

 

Hermann is nineteen and feels his time is also far too invaluable to indulge an American fan of his father’s, so he sets the letter aside and forgets all about it.

 

Until the second letter arrives in the post not a month later, and the task of responding is thrust upon him once more.

 

Irritated, Hermann flicks open the first letter to glance over it, just long enough to glean whatever he needs to know to respond in the most concise manner possible, but the letter is - it is articulate. And written in fluent German. He was not expecting as much from a boy with an American postal address.

 

And he is a boy - at seventeen years old, Newton Geiszler asks more intriguing questions than half of the men in his father’s employ. The manner of his inquisition stuns Hermann. He sets down the first letter and opens the second, where the tone has somewhat changed. Where the first was full of wonder and hunger for understanding, the second is impatient, and Hermann can understand that. It is a tense time for everyone. Though he feels it may be a bit narcissistic for a child to expect any sort of swift response from the project leader of the Jaeger program.

 

He begins his first response letter as such; they are the very first lines he writes before he takes a brief moment to Google Newton Geiszler. It’s probably a slim chance he’ll find anything of use to him, he thinks - he only searches on a hunch, that there must be some merit to any one person who clearly knows so much about the monsters that emerged from the sea. However, he imagines it’s probably a long shot to hope to find any traces of a seventeen-year-old American boy on the vast and ever-expanding internet on a simple hunch.

 

He is proven wrong in a matter of seconds

 

Like Hermann, Newton Geiszler is a child prodigy - a genius before his time. He is startled and impressed to read over his various degrees, news articles from the boy’s hometown, and feels almost guilty for prying when he learns something so intimate as the date of his high school graduation.

 

 

Newton had only been thirteen.

 

He minimises the internet screen and pulls on the glasses resting on the desk before he sets about to writing a response.

 

Newton is fascinating. He is inquisitive and maddeningly brilliant and keen on any information Hermann can offer. They write in English and German and once to be cheeky, Newton writes ten of Emily Dickinson’s poems in Czech because he knows Hermann loves her and that he doesn’t know a word of Czech.

 

Some days Hermann thinks Newton knows more about the Kaiju than he does, and that - that inspires so many different kinds of thoughts and feelings that Hermann doesn’t even know how to begin to analyze. They talk about procedure, about the Kaiju, about the Jaeger project and alternative methods of defence. They talk about the possibility of more monsters, of where they fear they may strike next. But Newton isn’t satisfied with just that. Newt is voracious in his appetite for knowledge and he coaxes personal information from Hermann like he’s being paid to. He offers so much of himself that Hermann just can’t help it sometimes.

 

 

Newt tells him about how he managed to talk his way into his first tattoo before his eighteenth birthday, that it rests scrawled along his forearm, but he hasn’t had it colored yet. He tells Hermann that he’s always loved biology, but since the appearance of Kaiju, for the first time in his life he feels like he’s finally found his life’s purpose. He confesses he’s never been back to Berlin since he left at age seven, that he’s never even left America in ten years; that he has a dual citizenship that he’s never once utilized. That he might like to someday when the world isn't under attack by giant alien monsters from the deep.

 

Tentatively, Hermann admits that numbers are the only things that eases his mind on bad days, and that he couldn't imagine being anywhere else but on the plotting team with his father.

 

When he’s twenty, there is an accident in a warehouse in Edinburgh where the first Jaeger prototype is in the works, and Hermann is hospitalized for nearly an entire month after the nearly fatal amount of blood loss and the resulting operation. He returns to Bavaria with his mother for three months of physical therapy.

 

His little sister is the one to forward on his post not three weeks after he'd settled in. She sends him a package half as thick as his thigh, stuffed with enough letters to coax a startled noise from him when it's delivered to his doorstep. According to Elsa, the letters had increased in number as time went on until there were nearly three a week being dumped in with the rest of the mail. She was tired of watching his pile of post grow and grow, piteous of the young man whose attempts at communication went on onesided for so long, and piteous of Hermann for being deprived of what appeared to be his one and only correspondent.

 

It only takes two letters in for Newton to grow suspicious at Hermann’s silence, and by the third he reveals that he read about the accident online and _Jesus, Hermann, the only articles on the matter described the accident as ‘tragic’ and ‘devastating’_ and that he needed to get back to Newton immediately if not sooner.

 

His letters grew shorter and more frantic as time wore on, until finally the last letter is dated a week prior, not even an entire paragraph in length, made up of one long and rambling demand for Hermann to write back as soon as he can.

 

While he finds a distinct sort of pleasure in written post, Hermann’s mouth quirks up in a soft smile as he sets a pen to paper and suggests that perhaps they ought to exchange email addresses.

 

* * *

 

After four years, when Hermann thinks he can know nothing more about another human being than he knows about Newton Geiszler, when he has shared more with a young man two years his junior than he ever has with his own father, they decide it’s long past time for them to meet.

 

They’re adults with the money and the means and the time and the desire, and it’s only ever been the fear of rejection that’s kept Hermann from asking earlier anyway, so he jumps at the offer when Newton extends it. He’s giving a lecture at a biophysics conference at Cambridge, and Hermann takes all of five minutes to look up the dates and book a flight when he finishes the email.

 

After four years, it’s almost surreal. It doesn’t hit Hermann until probably too late to be considered proper for a certified genius. He’s on the plane to Cambridge, and then he’s booked into his hotel, and then he’s showering and pulling on his best shirt and tie and cardigan and staring at his own flustered expression in the mirror and it still hasn’t quite sunk in. He’s in the taxi and then the conference hall and then he’s staring down at the program in his hands as he hobbles over to the side of the hall to remove himself from the middle of all the foot traffic. Newton gives his lecture in twenty-seven minutes in a room down the hall, and _this_ is when it hits him.

 

He'd sent an email from his phone that morning in the taxi, and since then he’s received no less than four from Newton. He licks his lips and fires one back with shaky thumbs. His heart is beating nearly out of his chest, which makes no sense, not really. He’s only going to be meeting Newton - Newt - the boy who’d locked himself into a barn once as a small child in the German countryside just to see what it was like to be trapped like an animal. The teenager who had taught himself to play the banjo (“Of all the instruments in the world, I ask you!”) and referred to himself on occasion as a _masterful banjo rockstar_. The man who’d written two letters to the most prominent scientist in Britain demanding a response, and when his son was the one to heed that demand, Newt had kept in correspondence for four years.

 

Newt Geiszler asked him here, wants him here, has wanted to meet him for "like, ten thousand goddamn years".

 

Newt Geiszler is maddening and brilliant and he makes Hermann’s pulse pound like a war drum.

 

Newt Geiszler is standing right in front of him.

 

* * *

 

To anyone who asks, Hermann will say they got off on the wrong foot the moment they met. He may even go so far as to say that they disliked each other instantly.

 

But they apply for the Hong Kong Shatterdome three years after meeting in the flesh, and they fall into an uncanny rhythm unlike anything anyone has ever seen outside of drift compatible Jaeger pilots, so their colleagues may take that with a grain of salt.

 

* * *

  
  


When Pentecost strides from the room leaving Newton and Hermann to stare at the screen of information before them, Hermann waits until the lab door clanks shut behind him. Newt is curiously silent, squinting at the image of Hannibal Chau with a face that Hermann recognizes. It fills him with a particular kind of dread, sharp and sudden, and he’s up on his feet as gracefully as he can ever be. He ignores Newton’s cry of outrage when he whips his cane up to thwack with purpose against his chest and crowds him against the console.

 

Normally Hermann prefers to use his words to back people into corners. Physical displays of intimidation are utterly barbaric, in his opinion - a tactic for men who use their fists because they don't properly know how to fight with their words. But Newton is not just _people_ and Hermann relishes in the way that the unexpectedly primitive move brings every ounce of Newton’s attention to him.

 

“You listen to me, you great, stubborn buffoon,” he growls, shifting even closer so that the insides of his shoes bracket the outsides of Newt’s, effectively trapping him between Hermann’s feet. If nothing else, Newton is always wary of upsetting Hermann’s leg, and he is not above using that to his advantage. “I know that look, and it doesn’t take a genius to see how moronically  _enthused_ you are right now. The gravity of the situation may not have penetrated your thick skull as of yet, but that man,” he takes a moment to jab his finger at the screen and feels a spark of satisfaction when Newton’s eyes don’t leave his, “is dangerous.”

 

A snort resonates from Newton’s flailing nostrils and so help him, that is _not_ one of the things Hermann wants to miss if things go dreadfully, horribly wrong. “We literally face the threat of giant destructive monsters on a daily basis, and  _now_ is the time you want to warn me against danger?”

 

“Don’t be an idiot,” Hermann hisses. “You know this is different.”

 

Hermann knows Newt is going to board a helicopter into the city, and then he’s going to take a taxi to the bone slums, where he’ll be far removed from any sort of protection the Shatterdome can offer. And there, all alone, he’s going to seek out a high ranking member of the godforsaken mafia and try to strike a deal. There is nothing in his mind and in his chest but a sense of overwhelming, all powerful dread. Every single day they fear and fight and struggle to ward off imminent demise, but Newton could be walking headfirst straight to his today, and that makes Hermann’s hands shake.

 

He thinks he might say it out loud, but he doesn’t. Newton is a genius; he’ll figure it out.

 

Perhaps he already has. His voice is lower, softer when he flicks his eyes down to Hermann’s mouth and says, “I might get the wrong idea if you keep up this aggressive concern, Herms. I may start to think you like having me around.”

 

“Just because I don’t want you shot in the head doesn’t mean I actively desire your presence,” Hermann retorts automatically. His body moves closer still, until he can feel the warmth of Newton’s thighs on his.

 

“I think it does, though.”

 

Not thirty minutes ago, Hermann found Newton convulsing on the floor with no idea what damage was truly done. He still doesn’t know - never mind the long term effects, but in the short term, what has drifting with a Kaiju brain done to Newton? More than anything he wants to strap him down and check him over, because all he has to go on now is the visible tremor in the lid of Newton’s red-ringed eye and the visible quake to his fingertips and lips. Thirty minutes haven't passed since he discovered Newton spasming and hooked up to a floating Kaiju brain and already he is about to run from the lab to find another.

 

As much as he respects Stacker Pentecost, Hermann hates him a little for dangling Hannibal Chau in front of Newton’s eyes like a toy mouse on a string.

 

Instead of rising to the bait, Hermann lets the cane slide down in his grip before he reaches up to press his thumb into the cheekbone just under Newton’s unsettlingly reddened eye. “Does it hurt?” he asks quietly. Newton’s eyelashes flutter in surprise. “Uh, does - what?” and it registers to Hermann that there was no way for him to know about the dark ring or the change.

 

“Your eye,” he murmurs, frowning. “You were fussing with it while we were debriefed. Is it - are you feeling unwell?”

 

Newton’s temples are damp with cooled sweat under Hermann’s fingertips, and his unkempt hair is soft to the touch. He seems to be rendered speechless for all of ten seconds. “I’m definitely gonna get the wrong idea,” he says a little shrilly, a little breathily. “Next thing I know, you’re gonna start talking about how the world will end without me and that I’m an invaluable part of the team or something, and I’ll probably have to make out with you a little bit because this is clearly some kind of trauma-induced hallucination.”

 

Color rises in Hermann’s cheeks and he narrows his eyes. Cautiously, almost shyly, he says, “You  _are_ an invaluable part of this project,” because if this is the last time he sees Newton he doesn’t want any regrets. “And I fear that if you die today, I alone may not be able to save the world. So.”

 

 

Something about the way Newton’s jaw drops makes Hermann smile.

 

Newton’s gaze flickers toward his mouth again and Hermann’s thumb sweeps once under his eye before he lets his hand fall from Newton’s face.

 

He steps away and Newton maintains his stunned expression as Hermann stares cooly back at him, and after a moment he raises a hand. Points a shaky finger at Hermann accusingly. “ _You’re_ the dangerous one, you - you -”

 

“Don’t strain yourself, Herr Doktor,” Hermann says blandly, and Newton throws both of his hands up. A small part of Hermann is glad; he’s been far too docile since his Kaiju drift.

 

“I am _definitely_ coming back to wipe that smug look off your dumb face,” Newton declares, and when he grips Hermann by the lapels and drags him in close, Hermann’s heart trips over itself. “Just you wait.”

 

If there is one thing Hermann is near sure of, it is that Newton will brave the mafia and live if only to rub it in Hermann’s face. He narrows his eyes and leans back into Newton’s space, as if to answer his challenge. The rapid pace of his heart does not slow. “Oh, I am counting on it, Doctor Geiszler.”

 

 

* * *

 

They don’t have time to revisit that moment the hours to follow. There is the next attack on Hong Kong, and Hermann biting his nails down to raw skin when the lines of contact are down with Newton and a thousand possibilities ricochet around in his head as he watches everything fall apart around him in LOCCENT; and then there are the orders to return to Newt’s side that Hermann jumps at like a particularly enthusiastic dog, and there is bickering on beside a great hulking fetus because Hermann has never felt so relieved to have someone at his throat, and hooking his mind to Newton’s and the Kaiju’s which is - something. And then they save the world.

 

Admittedly, they are somewhat distracted from any proper continuation of their earlier conversation.

 

But then they stop the clock entirely and he moves into Newton’s space and Newton wraps his arm around Hermann and doesn’t let go, not for the rest of the night. For hours and hours they receive congratulations and offer condolences and drink and drink and drink but never once is there _not_ a part of Newt’s body touching a part of Hermann’s body and it’s possibly more clarifying than any conversation could be.

 

And when the adrenaline dies down just as dawn creeps up on the Shatterdome and Hermann starts to sag from exhaustion, Newton extricates himself from where he’s been in deep conversation with Mako (how Raleigh can sleep slumped against her shoulder like that with all the noise around them, Hermann has no idea). Hermann is led out into the hall with a warm hand splayed over his back. They trudge past groups of people in the hall who part for them and touch their shoulders, but Hermann only feels the palm at his spine.

 

There is no question or hesitation when they reach Hermann’s door; he fumbles to unlock it, and Newton shepherds him in, leaves him on a wicker chair with a short, “Strip, man,” to start the walk in shower. After all these years, of course Newton would know that Hermann values nothing more than a hot shower before he falls into bed at the end of the day. Beginning of the day. Semantics.

 

 

It only takes a moment’s fumbling to pull off his shoes, his socks, his cardigan.

 

He’s nearly asleep in the chair before there are warm hands guiding him up and down the short corridor to his private shower, and he’s either too tired or too in love to protest when Newton helps him peel the rest of his layers off, though he leaves the undergarments to Hermann as he starts to shuck his own clothing.

 

It’s definitely exhaustion that keeps him from making any noise at Newt nudging him into the shower, or when he runs soapy hands through Hermann’s hair like a child, or when he snickers quietly at whatever shape he’s contorted Hermann’s hair into with the lather. Hermann reaches out in turn and wipes the dried bloody residue from under Newton’s nose, examines the skin shredded to an angry red by gravel at the heels of Newton’s palms, squints blearily to gauge the progress of Newton’s eye as he’s done on and off all night.

 

“Your red eye is kinda freakin’ me out,” Newt starts conversationally as he thoroughly rinses Hermann’s hair. “Like, it’s way too badass. We’re the only two people on the planet that have ever existed who’ve shared a mind link with a monster from another dimension. And we match, dude, how freaky is that?”

 

“If we were going to have matching rings, you could have at least made them silver,” Hermann mumbles. The laugh that Newton makes sounds like it was startled out of him.

 

“My god, dude. Where was this, like, eight years ago when I was ready to climb you like a tree at the word go?”

 

“I was always abominably flirtatious with you, you imbecile,” Hermann sniffs. He thinks about returning the favor and scrubbing shampoo through Newton’s hair, but he gently thumbs at his bottom lip instead to examine the damage where it’s been split and bleeding. “If it's taken you eight years to figure it out, you certainly didn’t deserve it back then.”

 

“Fuckin’ knew it,” Newton crowed. He took decidedly less care scrubbing through his own hair, and Hermann twisted to scrub the blood and dirt and sweat from his own body with a thick bar of soap before he handed it to Newton. Shifting to the side to allow Newton the a fuller force of the spray, Hermann took a moment for the first time to really take in the sight of him. Vibrant and beautiful colors were etched from wrist to shoulder and all across his chest. They’re nothing he hasn’t seen before. They’ve spent the better part of a decade together, and Newton requires chemical showers for his carelessness at least once a month. His skin is not news to Hermann, but it is different here in the intimate space of Hermann’s private shower where he is leaned in, drowsy and comfortable. Hermann is tired, too tired to focus on the monsters presented there, but the color is pleasant and the skin beneath them is warm and wet. “Whoa there,” Newt chuckles, catching Hermann about the elbows and leading him from the shower. “Yeah, come on, definitely time for bed. How’s your leg? You were up and running, like, all day, which can’t be all that awesome.”

 

“I’ll manage,” Hermann huffs, but he allows Newt to take a towel from the hot press and toss it at his chest.

 

It’s a testament to how long they’ve known each other, how in sync they may or may not have been even before they hooked themselves up to each others’ minds, like perhaps they truly were drift compatible all along, that they move straight from the shower into Hermann’s bed. Newt has never been particularly self conscious, and that much is made even clearer by the ease at which he goes digging through Hermann’s drawers entirely in the nude to retrieve whatever sleep clothes he can find. Hermann is not so comfortable with himself, and without the clothes or the close proximity, he feels terribly vulnerable with nothing but a cane in his hand as he limps further into the bedroom. There’s a twisted, gnarled scar that stretches from his hip to his knee that Newton has never, ever seen, but something about the way Newton shoves a few articles of clothing in his hands and flops, utterly naked and shameless, into Hermann’s bed makes him oddly comfortable.

 

“For God’s sake,” he says, throwing the night shirt over his shoulders and buttoning it up from the bottom. “Put  _something_ on.” Newton sprawls himself a little further, stretching like a cat, and Hermann’s heart leaps into his throat. His eyes dart from the smattering of moles all along Newton’s back, to the supple curve of his buttocks, to the dusky bollocks he cannot help but stare at for the briefest moment when Newton spreads his legs.

 

“I always sleep naked, man,” Newton says, peeking over his shoulder. Hermann feels a flush of guilt before relief when he remembers that without his glasses, there is no way Newt can know for certain that Hermann was just eyeing him up. “I don’t have any clothes here. I mean, if it really bugs you, I could probably wear something of yours.”

 

 _Jesus_ , there was an idea. Hermann licks his lips and hobbles over to the drawers to yank out a pair of black briefs. “Please do,” he says primly, and throws them at Newton’s bare ass. Turning, Hermann slips on his own, and then a baggy pair of pajama bottoms before he turns. Freezes. Hates himself for finding Newt just as scandalously arousing when he’s sprawled out in nothing but a pair of Hermann’s underwear - stretched almost sinfully tight over his perfectly rounded backside. Newton may not be wearing his glasses, but he’s smirking at Hermann like he knows.

 

“Shut up,” Hermann tells him, ignoring Newton’s cackles in favor of easing himself under the covers and resting on his good side, facing away from Newton. There’s a raucous shuffle of sheets behind him, which he knows to be Newton making himself comfortable close enough to feel his warmth.

 

There is no energy left for Hermann to think back on the last 24 hours. He can’t think back in fury at Newton’s moronic decision to drift with the Kaiju brain, cannot handle the immensity of his relief that for now the world is safer for it, that Newton Geiszler is safer for it. Ironically, more than anything, he cannot fathom how easily he has allowed Newton to manhandle him, to undress him and scrub soap through his hair, to pull on Hermann’s undergarments and slip into bed beside him as though they’ve done it a hundred times.

 

These are things he cannot do, not heavy and sated with alcohol and Newton already snoring softly behind him, so he sleeps.

 

* * *

 

Sometime in the night Newton has wriggled his arm under Hermann’s neck, or perhaps Hermann has rolled into the crook of his arm because there he is in the early afternoon light, resting his cheek against a firm bicep and staring right at a roaring, cartoonish Trespasser mere inches from his face. Newton is a hot line all down his back, pressed into every part of him from shoulder to ankle. Hermann cannot remember the last time he has ever been the little spoon. Blearily, he thinks he cannot recall ever spooning at all. He thinks he might remember someone calling him too bony to snuggle, but perhaps that is more self deprecation than memory.

 

Newt snuffles into his hair and Hermann jerks in surprise, which consequently rouses Newt with a little shout. “Where’sa fire,” he mumbles thickly. If there was a fire, Newton would be well and truly fucked, since his reaction to the possibility is nosing further into the back of Hermann’s neck.

 

“There is no fire,” Hermann replies unnecessarily. His voice is scratchy from sleep. Gooseflesh rises along his shoulders and down his breast where Newton’s hot breath fans over his skin.

 

“Cool,” is his grumbled response. Hermann can feel his lips every time they move, tickling the sensitive nape of his neck. “We can go back t’sleep, right?”

 

Eight years, he thinks. He could have had this for eight years. What a waste.

 

Hermann’s eyes flutter shut. He intends to sleep, exactly as Newton suggested. Somehow, despite their synchronicity the previous night and the fact that they entered the Kaiju hivemind together and Hermann can still vaguely feel Newton there in the back of his brain, Newt manages to misread his silence.

 

“Uh.”

 

He sounds awkward, and that never spells anything good. A hesitant Newt is a Newt who feels out of control of his situation, and that happens so rarely that it never fails to inspire caution from Hermann himself. “Is this… I mean. Last night. Was that… I kinda just pushed you around. Um. I thought it was a good idea at the time, so of course that’s what I did. But I was drunk, so.”

 

He’s giving Hermann an out. He’s allowing Hermann to take it all back, to think on it, to consider his options. But Hermann has had years and years to think and consider, thank you very much, so Newton can shove it up his arse.

 

“You’re a rather attentive drunk,” Hermann sniffs, slowly leaning in and pressing his nose into the crook of Newton’s elbow. He smells warm and clean and familiar. With great intent, he pulls the duvet further up his shoulder and nestles intimately just over Trespasser where he can hear Newt’s pulse. “Considering you bathed and clothed me and put me to bed, you must have been so  _very_ drunk.”

 

“Oh my god, shut up, you adorable asshole or I’ll have to cuddle the fuck out of you.”

 

“ _You_ shut up. And go back to sleep until you’ve regained what little sense you have left.”

  
“I’ll regain something,” Newton grumbles. Hermann doesn’t care that the comment is inane and meaningless or that the smile on his face is so wide his face might break. In this moment, he doesn’t care much about anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Specialist' by Interpol: _All I want is to be the very best for you / All I want is to do the very best by you / Oh, this time, there'll be no life of crime / Don't rain on me tonight / Somehow baby, we'll beat this mess / It's the time for the surface to meet the specialist_
> 
> If you are so inclined, feel free to follow [my Tumblr](http://byacolate.tumblr.com/).


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